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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla met on Wednesday with Polish soldiers who are due to be sent to Afghanistan, as they wound up a three-day visit to the central European nation.

The prince and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, reviewed troops at the base of Poland's 1st Armoured Brigade, in Wesola near the Polish capital Warsaw.

Charles chatted with a sniper from an elite unit who, fittingly for the snowy weather, was dressed in a white winter camouflage uniform.

Flanked by senior Polish officers, the couple plugged their ears with their fingers amid the gunfire as unit showed off its battle skills.

Afterwards, they headed to a military club house where they chatted with troops who are poised to join Poland's contingent in Afghanistan.

Poland is one of the major European players in NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, with 2,200 troops there, and is set to boost the number by 400 next month.

Poland is stepping up - more than anyone else in the former Warsaw Pact outside the former Soviet Republics of Latvia, Lithuania, and especially Estonia.

With time, I believe they will become more like the Brits, Canadians, and Dutch WRT utility - and less like the Germans, Spanish, and Italians.

One of the unfortunately less-known stories of the Western Front from WWII - but one we cover here whenever we can - is the outstanding war record of the Polish troops that fought on the Western Front as part of the Commonwealth Forces AOR more often than not. From Italy to the race along the North Seas Coast. When the war was over - they didn't even have a country to return to.

8 comments:

ewok40k
said...

List of major battles of Polish units in the Western front:1940 Narvik (Podhale Brigade, naval forces - 1 destroyer lost) , Battle of France (10 Armored Bde, 1st and 2nd Inf.Div.), Battle of Britain (Sqns 302, 303, bomber Sqn 304 ->further squadrons organized later and took part in the overall allied air effort)1941 Defence of Tobruk (Carpathian Brigade), hunt for the Bismarck (ORP Piorun in the Vian flotilla)1944 Monte Cassino (2nd Corps, yes, the French did the flanking but we took the damned hill!), Falaise pocket (1st armored Div., the ones who made the final bridge between Candians and Pattons army), Breda (1 armored Div., too), Market-Garden (1st Parachute Bde., Driel, some 200 managed to cross the Rhine to aid the Red Devils),1945 Bologne (2nd Corps) , taking Wilhelmshaven (1st Armored Div. again).Plus add on the Eastern front: breaking thru Pommernstellung, taking Kolberg, crossing Oder and selected units took part in the final Berlin attack. Not so-success: badly mauled in the Bautzen battle by Schorners army advancing to help Berlin. But few days later liberation of Prague.Only Chinese were longer at war agianst Axis, AFAIK.

One of the most moving experiences I had during my NATO tour in Italy was a visit to the Polish cemetery at Monte Cassino. I was unaware of the role of the Polish forces in taking the Abbey until then.

ewok, my wife's granddad was a member of, IIRC, 2nd Polish division in France, 1940. He escaped from an Axis POW camp in winter 39-40 and found himself facing the Germans again in Spring 1940. At the time of the armistice in June, his division was next to the Swiss border. Spared the onslaught of the Sichelschnitt, their division nevertheless saw some sharp fighting, for which Stanislaw T., my wife's grandpa, received after the war, a French decoration.

The division, rather than surrender to the Germans, crossed the border with Switzerland and got itself interned.

As for Market Garden... General Sosabowski has been rehabilitated. In that huge main hall on the ground level of Hotel Hartenstein, Oosterbeek near Arnhem, there is but one bust. That of General Sosabowski.

Okay, y'all made me research it. As usual, at the end of the day coming here, I'm smarter than at the start. But all I come away with is the sense that if Browning had listened to Urquhart that whole operation would have gone down very differently. Instead he packed him off to a hospital and negated all the intel. Okay, so what if the Dutch may have been penetrated... they had RAF photos. If they'd paid attention to the intel...

@OM: Swiss kept the entire division ready to rearm in case of German invasion, AFAIK.@DB: IMHO best chance of capturing the final bridge would be landing as close to it as possible, flak or not.Even landing gliders on a top of it , Eben Emael style!overall: lessons to be learned about limitations of light infantry facing heavy armor - and forced entry problems in general. Plus, IMHO the logistics tail from Normandy was too long to really finish the war before X-mas 44. Focusing on taking Antwerp and clearing approaches probably would be more effective.

DeltaBravo, I would have to look it up, but if I'm not mistaken, it was Urquhart himself who chose the flat fields to the west and northwest of Wolfheze, THIRTEEN kilometers from the Arnhem Bridge, as landing grounds.

As for Browning packing Urquhart to a hospital, he sent ANOTHER Urquhart on sick leave, not the CDR of the British 1st Airborne. There was an intel major by the same name of the general, but they were not related. That major showed Browning photos of German panzers. Browning dismissed them as 'not operational'. When Urquhart (the intel major, not the divisional commander) kept insisting the panzers might jeopardize the mission, Browning sent him indeed on sick leave.

And Sosabowski? There's a huge photo of him now in Hotel Hartenstein with a quote of him, something like 'Landing thirteen kloms from the bridge? Where's the surprise in that?'

As much as I admire the Brits, they treated the Polish, and Sosabowski in particular, in a scandalous manner. Monty especially.

DeltaBravo, I would have to look it up, but if I'm not mistaken, it was Urquhart himself who chose the flat fields to the west and northwest of Wolfheze, THIRTEEN kilometers from the Arnhem Bridge, as landing grounds.

As for Browning packing Urquhart to a hospital, he sent ANOTHER Urquhart on sick leave, not the CDR of the British 1st Airborne. There was an intel major by the same name of the general, but they were not related. That major showed Browning photos of German panzers. Browning dismissed them as 'not operational'. When Urquhart (the intel major, not the divisional commander) kept insisting the panzers might jeopardize the mission, Browning sent him indeed on sick leave.

And Sosabowski? There's a huge photo of him now in Hotel Hartenstein with a quote of him, something like 'Landing thirteen kloms from the bridge? Where's the surprise in that?'

As much as I admire the Brits, they treated the Polish, and Sosabowski in particular, in a scandalous manner. Monty especially.